Chantal Clement - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Chantal Clement
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics
Canadian food studies, May 15, 2015
Routledge eBooks, Jan 30, 2019
Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics, Oct 1, 2022
European citizens may choose the food they put into their shopping baskets, but they have not cho... more European citizens may choose the food they put into their shopping baskets, but they have not chosen the food systems that serve up that food. There is currently no EU ‘food policy’. Instead, the food we eat and the food systems we enjoy are shaped by a variety of distinct policy frameworks: agriculture, food safety and public health, trade, environmental protection, climate and energy, economic and social cohesion, rural development and international development, employment and education.
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 2021
ABSTRACT The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing ch... more ABSTRACT The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing challenges: reaching sustainable food security for all in a way that meets environmental and socio-economic sustainability. It has further confirmed that the logic of industrial agriculture has led our food systems down an unsustainable path, and that we must urgently change course. Agroecology is increasingly offered as the transformative and comprehensive solution that delivers benefits across all dimensions of sustainability. Yet, proponents of “business-as-usual” approaches continue to insist that producing higher, more resilient yields – particularly through new genomic techniques such as CRISPR/Cas – will serve as the means to ensure long-term food system resilience. Given the urgency for food systems transformation and drawing on agroecology as the paradigm shift we need, this article considers how new technologies can be assessed to evaluate their compatibility with food systems sustainability. Using the example of CRISPR/Cas, this article offers a preliminary framework for assessment based on FAO’s 10 Elements of Agroecology. The purpose here is not to offer a comprehensive and definite assessment of CRISPR/Cas, but to serve as an example to highlight the need for holistic assessment tools when considering the development and uptake of new agricultural technologies.
Journal of Rural Studies, 2019
HERD, Jan 5, 2016
This article outlines preliminary findings of a 3-year project that explored on-site food product... more This article outlines preliminary findings of a 3-year project that explored on-site food production on institutional properties, primarily healthcare facilities. There are growing pressures on healthcare facilities to improve their food offerings and incorporate food gardens into their health programs. While several healthcare facilities produce food on-site, there are few studies that explore opportunities, capacities, and institutional barriers related to on-site food production. The study employed mixed methods including historical review, case studies, surveys, interviews, pilot garden projects, and Geographic Information System mapping. The number of participating institutions varied by method. Benefits associated with on-site food production can be health, economic, environmental, and social. There are also institutional barriers including administrative roadblocks, perceived obstacles, and the difficulty in quantitatively, measuring the qualitatively documented benefits. The...
Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 2016
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 2021
The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing challenges:... more The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing challenges: reaching sustainable food security for all in a way that meets environmental and socio- economic sustainability. It has further confirmed that the logic of industrial agriculture has led our food
systems down an unsustain-able path, and that we must urgently change course. Agroecology is increasingly offered as the transformative and comprehensive solution that delivers benefits across all dimensions of sustainability. Yet, proponents of “business-as-usual” approaches continue to insist that producing higher, more resilient yields – particularly through new genomic techniques such as CRISPR/Cas – will serve as the means to ensure long-term food system resilience. Given the urgency for food systems transformation and drawing on agroecology as the paradigm shift we need, this article considers how new technologies can be assessed to evaluate their compatibility
with food systems sustainability. Using the example of CRISPR/Cas, this article offers a preliminary framework for assessment based on FAO’s 10 Elements of Agroecology. The purpose here is not to offer a comprehensive and definite assessment of CRISPR/Cas, but to serve as an example to highlight the need for holistic assessment tools when considering the development and uptake of new agricultural technologies.
Food Policy Journal, 2020
n 2014, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition recognized food system sustainability as a key conditio... more n 2014, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition recognized food system sustainability as a key condition to ensure adequate nutrition and access to healthy diets for all. Five years later, the evidence has never been more clear: despite a series of positive outcomes, our current food systems have increasingly generated severe environmental, social, and health-related costs. Many of the most severe health impacts of food systems can be traced back to the core practices of industrial food and farming systems (e.g. input-intensive agriculture; intensive livestock production; mass marketing of highly processed foods; deregulated global commodity chains). Yet alternatives exist.
This article provides an overview of the key impacts generated by current food systems on human and environmental health, with an emphasis on their effects in the region of Europe and Central Asia. It then brings together evidence on how diversified agroecological systems can play a key role in meeting health and nutrition goals, while also addressing the environmental, social, and economic challenges created by current systems. Ultimately, the article sheds light on how to break away from the underlying drivers keeping current systems in place, and suggests how more diversified systems can effectively be promoted through systemic, multi-sector, and integrated policy approaches to ensure healthy diets for all.
Journal of Rural Studies , 2019
Many sociologists and food policy activists are preoccupied with the fate of the family farm. In ... more Many sociologists and food policy activists are preoccupied with the fate of the family farm. In this paper we ask whether tacit normative beliefs among scholars regarding the family farm as an imagined site of resistance to industrialization and its ills holds up to empirical scrutiny? Using a grounded theoretical approach, we build an understanding of the relationship structures defining the contemporary family farm in its wider assemblages and food system relations. We engage 36 self-identified family farmers in Canada in qualitative interviews from which we constitute a definition of the contemporary family farm and its role in food politics. Our interviews reveal incredible variation in labour arrangements, production styles and strategies as well non-uniform commitments to sustainability among farmers. The interviews also, perhaps most crucially, reveal some of our participants trading upon normative conceptions of “family farm” and mobilizing what we claim is a “floating signifier” (Laclau, 1989) for a variety of food system interests, some arguably unsustainable.
Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 2016
As one output of a large participatory action research project, this article presents an empirica... more As one output of a large participatory action research project, this article presents an empirically grounded analysis of constraints and enablers to community food security (CFS) in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Our objective is to lay the groundwork for identifying strategic intrasectoral and cross-sectoral opportunities to further CFS. Theoretically, our research is informed by neo-Gramscian theories of the forces that enable sociopolitical change in the political economy of food systems and is grounded in the principles of participatory action research. The analysis is based on 41 interviews and a stakeholder gathering with people representing public sector, private sector, and civil society organizations working on food, poverty, health, agriculture, and fisheries issues in Nova Scotia.
HERD - Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 2016
There are growing pressures on healthcare facilities to improve their food offerings and incorpor... more There are growing pressures on healthcare facilities to improve their food offerings and incorporate food gardens into their health programs. While several healthcare facilities produce food on-site, there are few studies that explore opportunities, capacities, and institutional barriers related to on-site food production. This article outlines preliminary findings of a 3-year project that explored on-site food production on institutional properties, primarily healthcare facilities.
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics
Canadian food studies, May 15, 2015
Routledge eBooks, Jan 30, 2019
Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics, Oct 1, 2022
European citizens may choose the food they put into their shopping baskets, but they have not cho... more European citizens may choose the food they put into their shopping baskets, but they have not chosen the food systems that serve up that food. There is currently no EU ‘food policy’. Instead, the food we eat and the food systems we enjoy are shaped by a variety of distinct policy frameworks: agriculture, food safety and public health, trade, environmental protection, climate and energy, economic and social cohesion, rural development and international development, employment and education.
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 2021
ABSTRACT The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing ch... more ABSTRACT The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing challenges: reaching sustainable food security for all in a way that meets environmental and socio-economic sustainability. It has further confirmed that the logic of industrial agriculture has led our food systems down an unsustainable path, and that we must urgently change course. Agroecology is increasingly offered as the transformative and comprehensive solution that delivers benefits across all dimensions of sustainability. Yet, proponents of “business-as-usual” approaches continue to insist that producing higher, more resilient yields – particularly through new genomic techniques such as CRISPR/Cas – will serve as the means to ensure long-term food system resilience. Given the urgency for food systems transformation and drawing on agroecology as the paradigm shift we need, this article considers how new technologies can be assessed to evaluate their compatibility with food systems sustainability. Using the example of CRISPR/Cas, this article offers a preliminary framework for assessment based on FAO’s 10 Elements of Agroecology. The purpose here is not to offer a comprehensive and definite assessment of CRISPR/Cas, but to serve as an example to highlight the need for holistic assessment tools when considering the development and uptake of new agricultural technologies.
Journal of Rural Studies, 2019
HERD, Jan 5, 2016
This article outlines preliminary findings of a 3-year project that explored on-site food product... more This article outlines preliminary findings of a 3-year project that explored on-site food production on institutional properties, primarily healthcare facilities. There are growing pressures on healthcare facilities to improve their food offerings and incorporate food gardens into their health programs. While several healthcare facilities produce food on-site, there are few studies that explore opportunities, capacities, and institutional barriers related to on-site food production. The study employed mixed methods including historical review, case studies, surveys, interviews, pilot garden projects, and Geographic Information System mapping. The number of participating institutions varied by method. Benefits associated with on-site food production can be health, economic, environmental, and social. There are also institutional barriers including administrative roadblocks, perceived obstacles, and the difficulty in quantitatively, measuring the qualitatively documented benefits. The...
Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 2016
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 2021
The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing challenges:... more The current public health crisis has shed light on one of food systems’ most pressing challenges: reaching sustainable food security for all in a way that meets environmental and socio- economic sustainability. It has further confirmed that the logic of industrial agriculture has led our food
systems down an unsustain-able path, and that we must urgently change course. Agroecology is increasingly offered as the transformative and comprehensive solution that delivers benefits across all dimensions of sustainability. Yet, proponents of “business-as-usual” approaches continue to insist that producing higher, more resilient yields – particularly through new genomic techniques such as CRISPR/Cas – will serve as the means to ensure long-term food system resilience. Given the urgency for food systems transformation and drawing on agroecology as the paradigm shift we need, this article considers how new technologies can be assessed to evaluate their compatibility
with food systems sustainability. Using the example of CRISPR/Cas, this article offers a preliminary framework for assessment based on FAO’s 10 Elements of Agroecology. The purpose here is not to offer a comprehensive and definite assessment of CRISPR/Cas, but to serve as an example to highlight the need for holistic assessment tools when considering the development and uptake of new agricultural technologies.
Food Policy Journal, 2020
n 2014, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition recognized food system sustainability as a key conditio... more n 2014, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition recognized food system sustainability as a key condition to ensure adequate nutrition and access to healthy diets for all. Five years later, the evidence has never been more clear: despite a series of positive outcomes, our current food systems have increasingly generated severe environmental, social, and health-related costs. Many of the most severe health impacts of food systems can be traced back to the core practices of industrial food and farming systems (e.g. input-intensive agriculture; intensive livestock production; mass marketing of highly processed foods; deregulated global commodity chains). Yet alternatives exist.
This article provides an overview of the key impacts generated by current food systems on human and environmental health, with an emphasis on their effects in the region of Europe and Central Asia. It then brings together evidence on how diversified agroecological systems can play a key role in meeting health and nutrition goals, while also addressing the environmental, social, and economic challenges created by current systems. Ultimately, the article sheds light on how to break away from the underlying drivers keeping current systems in place, and suggests how more diversified systems can effectively be promoted through systemic, multi-sector, and integrated policy approaches to ensure healthy diets for all.
Journal of Rural Studies , 2019
Many sociologists and food policy activists are preoccupied with the fate of the family farm. In ... more Many sociologists and food policy activists are preoccupied with the fate of the family farm. In this paper we ask whether tacit normative beliefs among scholars regarding the family farm as an imagined site of resistance to industrialization and its ills holds up to empirical scrutiny? Using a grounded theoretical approach, we build an understanding of the relationship structures defining the contemporary family farm in its wider assemblages and food system relations. We engage 36 self-identified family farmers in Canada in qualitative interviews from which we constitute a definition of the contemporary family farm and its role in food politics. Our interviews reveal incredible variation in labour arrangements, production styles and strategies as well non-uniform commitments to sustainability among farmers. The interviews also, perhaps most crucially, reveal some of our participants trading upon normative conceptions of “family farm” and mobilizing what we claim is a “floating signifier” (Laclau, 1989) for a variety of food system interests, some arguably unsustainable.
Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 2016
As one output of a large participatory action research project, this article presents an empirica... more As one output of a large participatory action research project, this article presents an empirically grounded analysis of constraints and enablers to community food security (CFS) in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Our objective is to lay the groundwork for identifying strategic intrasectoral and cross-sectoral opportunities to further CFS. Theoretically, our research is informed by neo-Gramscian theories of the forces that enable sociopolitical change in the political economy of food systems and is grounded in the principles of participatory action research. The analysis is based on 41 interviews and a stakeholder gathering with people representing public sector, private sector, and civil society organizations working on food, poverty, health, agriculture, and fisheries issues in Nova Scotia.
HERD - Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 2016
There are growing pressures on healthcare facilities to improve their food offerings and incorpor... more There are growing pressures on healthcare facilities to improve their food offerings and incorporate food gardens into their health programs. While several healthcare facilities produce food on-site, there are few studies that explore opportunities, capacities, and institutional barriers related to on-site food production. This article outlines preliminary findings of a 3-year project that explored on-site food production on institutional properties, primarily healthcare facilities.
Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance, 2019
Chapter in Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance. This book offers insigh... more Chapter in Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance.
This book offers insights into the governance of contemporary food systems and their ongoing transformation by social movements.
As global food systems face multiple threats and challenges there is an opportunity for social movements and civil society to play a more active role in building social justice and ecological sustainability. Drawing on case studies from Canada, the United States, Europe and New Zealand, this edited collection showcases promising ways forward for civil society actors to engage in governance. The authors address topics including: the variety of forms that governance engagement takes from multi-stakeholderism to co-governance to polycentrism/self-governance; the values and power dynamics that underpin these different types of governance processes; effective approaches for achieving desired values and goals; and, the broader relationships and networks that may be activated to support change. By examining and comparing a variety of governance innovations, at a range of scales, the book offers insights for those considering contemporary food systems and their ongoing transformation.
PhD Dissertation - Carleton University, 2017
For over half a century, industrial agricultural and food systems have developed to the detriment... more For over half a century, industrial agricultural and food systems have developed to the detriment of rural spaces. Alongside modernization and growth, many local communities have experienced not only economic loss, but a loss of purpose and identity as well. As one response to these changes, sustainable local food systems (SLFS) initiatives are being pursued by a growing number of communities. Their belief is that an alternative paradigm based on SLFSs is needed to support vibrant rural livelihoods: by challenging unequal power relationships between food system actors, by repairing the rift between human and natural environments, or simply by breathing new socio-economic life into their declining communities. This dissertation explores the governance mechanisms being developed between civil society, the state, and private sector actors to support SLFS initiatives. It aims to show not only what initiatives are developed, but how these alternatives are introduced and sustained. Building on governance theory and drawing from critical political economy approaches, this work argues that collaborative and reflexive governance approaches are best positioned to enable SLFS development. To support this claim, I describe and analyze cases of SLFS initiatives pursued within four rural communities: North Saanich, British Columbia and Wolfville, Nova Scotia in Canada, Correns, France, and Todmorden, UK. These case studies highlight six categories of governance that ultimately demonstrate low to highly collaborative and reflexive SLFS initiatives. Outlining types of governance and how they play out in practice allows us to better understand the opportunities and challenges inherent to different governance strategies and their ability to support SLFSs. Grounded in both field observations and in-depth and semi-structured interviews with community members, this work also aims to give voice to actors often marginalized in dominant food system processes. An analysis of the case studies highlights the need for 1) strong social capital within a community; 2) a whole community approach to socio-economic development; 3) a strong role for the state; and 4) genuine multi-actor collaboration, as the foundation for SLFS growth. I conclude by considering sustainable food system research’s lingering question on growth and scalability to generate meaningful food system change.
Journal of Rural Studies, 2019
Many sociologists and food policy activists are preoccupied with the fate of the family farm. In ... more Many sociologists and food policy activists are preoccupied with the fate of the family farm. In this paper we ask whether tacit normative tendencies to counterpoise the family farm with the realization of industrial food systems hold up to empirical scrutiny? Using a grounded theoretical approach, we build an understanding of the relationship structures defining the contemporary family farm in its wider assemblages and food system relations. We engage 36 self-identified family farmers in Canada in qualitative interviews from which we constitute a definition of the contemporary family farm and its role in food politics. Our interviews reveal incredible variation in labour arrangements, production styles and strategies as well non-uniform commitments to alternative foodways among farmers. The interviews also, perhaps most crucially, reveal some of our participants trading upon stereotypes of “family farm” and mobilizing what we claim is a “floating signifier” (Laclau, 1989) for a variety of food system interests.